Objectify This

Tonight, my flight leaves for Bolivia at 8:30. I´m excited for the visit because my money will go farther there, and because it will be the first country that I´ve ever been to which has a thriving indigenous culture.

It´s a culture that I don´t know much about, so I´ve been trying to do some research on gender issues. An article by Robert Albro caught my eye; he writes that Bolivian culture ”situates the “image” of the popular woman in the emerging electoral context of Quillacollo, a Bolivian provincial capital.”

For Bolivians, according to my Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia, “In La Paz there has been a resurgence of traditional Ayamará dress among some younger women . So strong are the trends that the annual contest to elect a Miss Cholita Paceña is attracting contestants who (the local press claims) have ditched their designer jeans in favor of new-found cholita fashions and status.

“The image of the chola (an Ayamará woman who lives in the city but wears traditional dress; cholita is sometimes considered more polite) is altering dramatically. Her traditional image of a market seller is rapidly being superseded by that of a trader, businesswoman, and politician (there are even cholas in government); her attitudes and behavior are said to represent the contemporary Ayamará bourgeoisie.”

Albro´s not so sure that cholitas are granted political power. He writes, ”Even as “cholas” remain largely shut out from regional political power, their ubiquitous image culturally mediates political access to the popular sector for men. Hence authorities initiate token economic exchanges with cholas. both to participate intimately in the popular cultural milieu, and to solidify their claims to personal roots in this world.

“This argument examines the interrelated contexts of national structural adjustment, regional development, the domestic economy, agricultural fiestas, and sexual conduct, as these are “performed” within a regional folkloric calendar, that turn on the currency of the chola as a political “root metaphor.” In turn, the role of the chola’s image suggests limitations upon her status as historical actor.”

And it´s no wonder that it suggest limitations: Lonely Planet continues by adding “the characteristic dress worn by many Bolivian indigenous women was imposed on them in the 18th century by the Spanish king, and the customary center parting of the hair was the result of a decree by the Viceroy Toledo.This distinctive ensemble, both colorful and utilitarian, has almost become Bolivia´s defining image.”

It´s ironic that clothing that was initially used by colonialist oppressors to limit the roles of Aramayá women is now being used as a potentially politically empowering alternative to globalized feminine identity.

The movement back towards a complexly multilayered traditional dress indicates a resistance to the globalization of a foreign standard of beauty. Even the direct oppression of the 18th century was less personally damaging than the subtle messages that women here recieve about the inferiority of their beauty according to the Western ideal of the white blond Barbie doll.